Quoting of Rose Weasley
by helotastic
Summary: Rose is just as sweet by another name. She's the symbol of beauty itself. She sometimes has thorns, but she represents love. Rose is aptly named after one of the greatest literary subjects since the beginning of time: the rose itself.
1. Roses Make the World Sweet

**I figured it was about time I wrote a Rose/Scorpius fic.**

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><p><span>Chapter 1: Roses Make the World Sweet<span>

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><p>"<em>Love planted a rose, and the world turned sweet."<br>–Katharine Lee Bates_

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><p>"Don't get too friendly." Her father's words echo in her mind as she makes her way down the train, Albus following in her wake, trying to ignore the whispers and stares.<p>

"Is it okay if we sit here?" Rose asks, sliding open the glass door of a nearly empty compartment.

Its single occupant looks up, startled.

It is the boy from the platform. Scorpius, she remembers.

He gives an almost imperceptible nod.

"Thank you. My name's Rose. Rose Weasley. And this is my cousin-"

"Albus Potter. I know." These are the first words she ever hears him speak. His voice is softer than she expected, and his gray eyes betray no emotion. "Harry Potter's son, right?"

"Er, yeah," Albus confirms. He sits stiffly on the bench next to Rose, facing Scorpius.

Rose looks back and forth between them. "Oh, honestly, you two. Can't you put a little grudge behind you and be friends?"

Scorpius is confused. All his life the whole world has shunned him for nothing other than his surname.

The Malfoy. The pureblood fanatic. The Death Eater.

Rose's warm brown eyes study his, and he feels like she's searching his soul. "I know you're a Malfoy, but that doesn't mean anything. Your family doesn't have to determine who you are."

And that is when he decides. From that day on, he makes a name for himself, separate from his family legend, and the world eventually warms up to him, giving him a second glance before marking him as the enemy.


	2. Rose is Everything

**This is what happens when I'm overjoyed at being registered for Pottermore. Two updates in a row.**

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><p><span>Chapter 2: Rose is Everything<span>

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><p>"<em>A single rose can be my garden… a single friend, my world."<br>–Leo Buscaglia_

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><p>He hates them all.<p>

The Gryffindors that look down at him:

"He's nothing more than Death Eater devil spawn."

The Hufflepuffs who make an effort to be friendly, but whisper behind his back:

"No matter what, nothing good comes from the Malfoys."

The Ravenclaws who ignore him:

"There are greater things to think and worry about than a dirty little Slytherin."

Even the Slytherins turn their backs on him:

"Scorpius, that blood traitor."

But no, he doesn't really hate them all.

The whole Potter-Weasley extended family welcomes him with open arms, despite being a bit wary at first.

Still, none of them, not even his best mate Albus, compare to Rose.

From the very first day, she is there for him.

She works with him in potions when everyone else hurries to avoid being paired with him.

She studies with him in the library when everyone else would rather stand than sit at his table.

She leaves the Ravenclaw table in the morning to eat breakfast with him at the Slytherin table.

She is the lighthouse that guides him through his day.

She is the reason life is bearable.

She is his best friend.

It doesn't really matter if the whole school is against him.

It doesn't matter if the whole world is against him.

He has Albus. He has Lily. He has Hugo.

And most importantly, he still has Rose.


	3. One and Only Rose

**Lots of love to all my readers and reviewers! ****Warning: This chapter contains extreme fluffiness.**

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><p><span>Chapter 3: One and Only Rose<span>

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><p>"<em>There may be many flowers in a man's life, but there is only one rose."<br>– Unknown_

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><p>"It's your turn to pay for butterbeers at The Three Broomsticks," Rose announces, sliding into a seat at the Slytherin table, completely oblivious to the attention her halo of frizzy red flyaway hair is getting.<p>

Scorpius squirms, and concentrates on pieces of egg on his plate. "About that…"

"Don't try to tell me you don't have any money," Rose laughs. "I know for a fact you won a bet with Albus last week."

"Rose," he decides there's no easy way to break the news to her, "I'm going with Shayla."

"Oh, she can come too," Rose says absentmindedly, helping herself to a slice of toast.

"We're going alone. Like on-a-date alone."

She stops with her hand halfway to her mouth. "What?"

"I know we already made plans but I've had a crush on Shayla for a while and she said yes when I asked her to go to Hogsmeade with me so I hope you don't mind," he mumbles, avoiding eye contact.

She stands up abruptly. "No, it's fine. I was actually planning to go to the library and finish my planet chart for Astronomy today."

"Rose…"

"I said it's fine," she repeats fiercely. "Go have a good time with your girlfriend."

He watches her walk away, and the image stays burned into his memory the whole time he is in Madam Puddifoot's.

Without really knowing why, he says goodbye to Shayla only ten minutes into their date, during a story about how she was once at a nail salon and all the colors were unflattering to her skin tone.

Brushing hot pink confetti from his hair, he walks back to the castle, his feet seeming to know exactly where to go.

He finds her in a broom closet just off the Charms corridor. The dim light reveals her puffy, red rimmed eyes and blotchy cheeks.

Instinctively, because there seems to be no other option, he crawls inside and shuts the door, throwing them into pitch darkness.

His hand finds hers, and they sit for an eternity until her sniffling fades away.

"Do you remember the day we met?" he starts, loosening his hand in case she wants to pull away; her grip only grows tighter.

Taking this as a good sign, he continues, "My father told me to stay away from you. 'Nothing good can come from those Weasleys,' he said. But you were so, I don't know, vivacious. So full of life. I'd never met anyone like it. I was hooked like a moth is drawn to a light."

His eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and he sees that she seems slightly more cheerful. Not exactly laughing, but no longer crying either.

"I remember you standing up for me when no one else would. You had complete faith that I wasn't just a son of a Death Eater, but a person in my own right." Now he wants to cry, too. All the things he should have told her these past six years but never did come pouring out of his mouth.

"You were my best friend, next to Al, of course. I loved you like a best friend. But after a few years, something changed... No, it didn't change, I had just never noticed before." He stops and notices how intently she is watching him. "I love you."

"I love you too," she whispers.

He cups her face in his hand and kisses her.

Because there is nothing left to say.

Because, deep down, they both knew this would happen since they first met on the Hogwarts Express.

Because even if he did have crushes on other girls, he was only really ever in love with Rose.


	4. Roses Have Thorns, but Thorns Have Roses

****257 Hits** and **139 Visitors**, but only 11 reviews. Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this picture? Just saying...**

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><p><span>Chapter 4: Roses have Thorns, but Thorns have Roses<span>

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><p>"<em>We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice that thorn bushes have roses."<br>–Abraham Lincoln_

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><p>"But I don't want to show up alone!" Scorpius pleads. "Everyone will be all 'There's that bloke who didn't have anyone to come to the party with. What a loser.'"<p>

"I hardly think everyone is going to think that," Rose reassures him, checking the open textbook in front of her and then scribbling a quote into her essay. "Just tell everyone I was too busy and couldn't make it."

He snatches the roll of parchment away and holds it behind his back. "You only had to write six inches and you've already written two feet, not to mention this isn't due until Thursday. You deserve to have a break."

"Give it back!" she demands, standing on tiptoes and making wild grabs at it; he merely laughs and holds it just out of her reach.

She collapses in her chair. "I hate you, Scorpius Malfoy!"

"Oh, Merlin," he smirks. "You're using my full name now. How scary."

Madam Pince glares daggers at them, and Scorpius lowers his voice. "Okay, I'll give it back to you, if -and this is all you have to do- you come to the party with me."

"Absolutely not."

"You don't have to stay the whole time," he bargains. "Only an hour or two. Dance a little, drink a little, have some fun. It's not every day Slytherin wins a Quidditch match."

"Give me my essay, Malfoy."

He sighs and drops it back onto the table. "You're no fun, Rose."

"What a pity," she replies sarcastically, searching through her bag for last week's notes on Patronuses.

"I meant it. You're so… uptight. You're a know-it-all. You're stubborn. You're-"

"Go away," Rose interrupts. "Do me a favor, Malfoy, and just leave."

"Honestly," he continues, as if he hadn't heard her. "You always think you're right. You like to boss people around. You don't know how to have fun. You don't even know what fun is, probably."

"If you're still trying to get me to come, it isn't working," she insists.

"You have no social life. You're frumpy. You don't care about what other people think," he rambles. "You're different. You have your own personal style."

She is still bending over her parchment, but her quill is frozen in place.

"No matter how crabby you are in the morning, you still look amazing even when you wake up with bedhead. You're a brilliant Keeper. You're sweet and funny. No bloke alive deserves you. You-"

She stands up and shoves her things inside her book bag. "All right, I'll come."

He stops, hardly believing his luck. "Really?"

She can't help but laugh. "Really."


	5. Many Names, One Rose

**Thanks to my readers!**

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><p><span>Chapter 5: Many Names, One Rose<span>

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><p>"<em>What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."<br>–William Shakespeare_

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><p>"Oh, Rose. I'm so excited for you!" Lily squeals, hugging the soon-to-be Malfoy.<p>

Rose smiles back at her bridesmaid, but inside her stomach is churning.

Mrs. Rose Malfoy.

She imagines it on scented stationery, printed in swirling gold across the top.

Mrs. Rose Malfoy.

She imagines writing her name like that for the rest of her life.

Mrs. Rose Malfoy.

She feels excited and scared and nervous and exhilarated all at the same time.

True to tradition, she and Scorpius come to the church separately. He won't see her cotton candy confection of a dress until she comes down the aisle.

She is hustled into a small room in the church for last minute preparations.

The only time she has seen her mother even halfway to being this excited is when she got her Head Girl badge.

"You look beautiful," Hermione says, straightening Rose's tiara, which used to belong to her Great-Great-Aunt Muriel.

Gabrielle, Teddy and Victoire's five-year-old daughter, is dancing around in a fluffy pale gold dress. Her hair is bright green, and Lily is trying to convince her to change it to brown just for the ceremony. ("Don't you want to look pretty like Rose?")

Scorpius is presumably in another room with Albus, his best man, and the other groomsmen.

Julie, Rose's best friend and Maid of Honor keeps ordering her to relax and enjoy her big day, but Rose doesn't absorb any of it.

And then it's time.

Hermione kisses Rose on the cheek one last time before hurrying into the church.

Gabrielle is in front, her hair now a dark brown, with a rebellious tint of green to it.

"You don't have to do this," Ron tells her, as they wait to go down the aisle.

The idea is tempting, but she knows she has already made a final decision.

"I've given it a lot of thought," she assures her father. "You know me."

He smiles at his little girl, who is no longer so little, and suddenly wants nothing more than to hold her, to play peek-a-boo with her, to keep her sheltered from the world.

He tries not to cry as he tells her, "I wanted to tell you something. Actually, your mother wanted to tell you, too. It took me a long time to accept it, but I finally have. We both want you to know… We want you to know that whether you're a Malfoy or a Weasley, you'll always be our little Rosie."

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><p><strong>It takes five seconds to review and bring some sunshine into my life.<strong>


	6. Grasping Thorns with Roses

**Thanks for the reviews! There's nothing like seeing your inbox filled with thirty new emails. :D**

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><p><span>Chapter 6: Grasping Thorns with Roses<span>

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><p>"<em>But he that dare not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose."<br>–Anne Bronte_

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><p>"Um, Rose?" Scorpius asks tentatively, opening the door of their flat.<p>

He can never be sure if his pregnant wife is in a good or bad mood because they blur together very easily. She can be screaming one minute and crying the next.

Merlin, he's going to be glad when the baby is born and they don't have to deal with pregnancy anymore.

She is sitting cross-legged on the couch, a now empty box of chocolate cauldrons on the floor.

"Hi," she greets him cheerfully, "Did you have a good day at work?"

He hangs up his coat in the hall and kisses her. "Not any worse than usual. Were you okay at home?"

She waddles over to the kitchen table and sits awkwardly, smiling at him. "You worry too much. It's like you expect me to suddenly go into labor."

"Well, it could happen," Scorpius says defensively, opening the refrigerator. "What do you want for dinner?"

"Is there any pasta?" she asks, "I've been craving for fettuccini all day."

He checks the pantry. "There's spaghetti, but no fettuccini."

"Can you go get some?"

"Rose…"

"Pwease?" She gives him a puppy dog face, somewhat marred by the dark circles under her eyes and her even-more-messy-than-usual hair.

He gives in anyway. "Did you know-"

"Yes, seeing as I'm the genius I am, I probably do know."

"I'm fighting the urge to argue with a pregnant woman," he warns playfully, "but I'm pretty close."

She rolls her eyes.

"As I was saying, did you know that the staff at the convenience store now knows me on a first-name basis?"

"Well, I'll make sure to invite them to family reunions," Rose says drily.

He grins. "I see your sarcasm is still intact."

"And your need to point out the obvious is even more so," she responds without missing a beat. "Your procrastination skills, too."

"Okay, okay, I'm going right now. Anything else besides pasta?"

"Some chocolate would be nice…"

"Yes, your highness." He pulls his coat back on. "Love you."

He expects her to say "you, too", but she doesn't.

Instead, she is standing up, gasping, with one hand on her stomach.

"What is it?" he asks in alarm.

"Say it again," she orders, keeping her hand in place.

"What?"

She glares at him, and he backs away, in case she tries to hex him like she did last week. "Say 'I love you.'"

"I love you," he repeats cautiously.

"He kicked! The baby kicked!" Rose grabs his hands and places them at the base of her swollen belly.

"I love you." And there it is. A small flutter of movement. He feels dizzy.

Rose's bright brown eyes are fixed on him. "That's our little boy."

"I… bloody hell. I don't even know what to say." He is awestruck at this little miracle of life. "I love you. I love you. I love you."

And suddenly, he doesn't care how cranky Rose has been these past few months.

It doesn't matter how many times he's had to Apparate to get food early in the morning.

It's all worth it, standing here on the worn dark brown carpet of their flat with Rose and his future son.


	7. Roses Fade

**This is the last chapter, so enjoy it!**

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><p><span>Chapter 7: Roses Fade<span>

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><p>"<em>Chocolate spoils and roses fade, but true love last forever."<br>-Joanna Marie O'Neil_

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><p>"Violet, don't bother your brother Leo," Rose scolds. "He needs to finish packing so he can go to school today."<p>

"Mommy, I want to go to school, too!" four-year-old Violet begs.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Rose ushers her out of the room, leaving Leo to pack, "in a few years."

Violet sits down stubbornly in the middle of the hallway. "I want to go now!"

"Merlin, help me," Rose mutters under her breath before kneeling down next to her. "You'll be at school before you know it."

"Now!"

"What's wrong, flower?" Scorpius appears in the hallway, yawning, his blonde hair sticking in every direction.

Violet points at Rose accusingly. "Mommy won't let me go to school!"

"What? I didn't say that!"

Scorpius smirks. The same smirk as the time they wrote the word 'loser' in permanent ink on the back of their Potions teacher, Professor Parkinson. Rose doesn't know how he can keep the exact same expression all these years.

"Fine, try and talk to her," Rose asks imploringly, straightening up.

"Mum?" Leo calls. "Where's my Hogsmeade permission form?"

Rose sighs. "It's on your desk!"

"What about-"

"Your allowance money is right beside it," Rose answers without waiting for him to finish. "Try not to waste all of it on candy this year, will you?"

Scorpius has pulled Violet, who is considerably calmer, onto his lap and is watching Rose amusedly.

"Oh, that's right," Rose says exasperatedly, noticing his grin. "Laugh all you want. We promised to meet Al and Julie at King's Cross in" -she checks her watch- "half an hour."

His eyes widen and he covers Violet's ears before saying something he probably wouldn't repeat in front of his mother.

"Lovely," Rose deadpans, hurrying downstairs to find her middle child, Hannah, sitting quietly at the kitchen table in a fitted tee and jeans.

Rose sits down next to her. "Ready for your big day?"

Hannah shakes her head, which merely makes her unruly brown hair even messier. "What if the train crashes? What if nobody will let me sit in their compartment on the train? What if I get there and they decide I'm not magical enough? What if-"

"Don't worry about it," Rose says. "That's my job."

Hannah smiles reluctantly, and her smile grows wider when they reach Platform 9 ¾.

Leo allows his mother to hug him and ruffle his blond hair only once before dashing off to meet his friends.

"Boys." Julie shakes her head as her own son does the same.

Hannah is already chatting away with another girl as they load their trunk onto the train.

Violet runs the length of the platform, waving to her older sibling until they disappear into the distance.

"They grow up fast, don't they?" Albus says, breaking the silence.

Violet sighs dramatically, returning to her mother's side. "Not me."

"Oh, flower," Rose says, "you'll grow up soon enough. Too soon."

"Or you may be doomed to be that short forever," James teases, joining them.

"James!" Rose admonishes. "Don't put that idea in her head or-"

Violet is pouting again.

"Great job, mate," Scorpius says, glaring. "Now she's going to be upset all day."

"Hey, Vi, do you want to go see the Chudley Cannons play next week?"

Her large gray eyes widen. "Okay!"

"Your Uncle James is nice, isn't he? What do you say?"

"Thank you!" Violet chirps.

"Good girl," Rose praises her, but Scorpius is no longer listening.

It strikes him how pretty she looks, in her baggy green sweater and white jeans.

Gorgeous, in fact.

Having three children hasn't done much for her.

Her waistline isn't as slim as it used to be.

Her skin isn't as smooth as it once was.

Her hair isn't the bright brownish red anymore.

But her eyes have the same comforting warmth.

Her smile is just as heart-stopping.

Her personality is still bubbly.

No matter what anyone says, he thinks, a rose's beauty never fades. At least in his eyes.

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><p><strong>I lied. I actually wrote one more chapter, an epilogue of sorts, but I'm thinking about publishing it separately. Thoughts?<strong>


	8. Epilogue: Remembering Rose

**The very last chapter in this story. Can you believe how fast I finished it?**

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><p><span>Epilogue: Remembering Rose<span>

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><p>"<em>God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December."<br>–James Matthew Barrie_

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><p>"What was grandmum like?" The question comes unexpectedly from his three-year-old granddaughter Jasmine, as she joins him on the couch to get away from the hustle and bustle of the family reunion.<p>

He pretends he didn't hear her question. Looking through the doorway, Scorpius catches a glimpse of his son Leo, decorating the living room with streamers trailing from his wand.

"Granddaddy, are you listening to me?" Jasmine repeats ferociously, her hands on her hips the same way Rose would.

And then he gives in. She is too much like her grandmother, from her frizzy red hair to her stubborn personality.

"Your grandmother was an amazing person," he starts. "She had faith in everyone, including me."

"Huh?" Her little hands play with her hair, and her innocent face is fixed on him.

He puts his arm around her. "Let's just say… a long time ago, there was a war, and my parents were on the bad side."

She seems satisfied with this answer, so he continues. "She loved you very much, you know."

"She liked to hold me," Jasmine remembers.

Scorpius knows that she is much too young to have remembered that, but he doesn't correct her. How often has he done the same thing? Assuaging the pain with memories somewhere between dreams and reality.

Slowly, his joints aching in protest, he reaches for a photo album on the coffee table. It is made of dark brown leather, embossed with "_Rose_" in gold calligraphy.

She made it herself, he remembers. She bought the album and gold leaf from a craft shop, refusing to use her wand in any part of the process.

"I want to treasure this," she had said solemnly, "I don't want it to be easy, to be instantly replaceable."

And so he and Jasmine now stroll through a garden of memories.

"Her first day of school," Scorpius says of a portrait featuring a young girl in black robes. Just by looking at it, he is flooded with all the details of the day he met her.

There are pictures of winters past: snowball fights and stories told by the fireplace in the Burrow.

There are frozen moments of summer: ice-cold lemonade and a Quidditch World Cup.

There are snapshots of long gone days at Hogwarts: splashing in the lake and his head in her lap beneath the shade of a tree.

Their graduation comes and goes, depicted by photos of boats coming across the lake and fancy dress robes.

Rose is growing up.

She attends birthday parties and weddings and graduations and baby showers and funerals. All are captured by the silent eye of the camera and pasted lovingly into the album.

Jasmine particularly loves the pictures of Rose in her wedding dress, taken after the ceremony, but before the reception.

It had been a lazy summer day, he remembers.

The photographer, Dennis Creevey, he thinks, had come with them, snapping picture after picture as they Apparated around the countryside.

The first one was on the beach near Shell Cottage. He stands behind her, his arms around her waist, her poufy white dress almost touching the wet sand. The salty breeze is blowing her hair and veil back as she laughs at something he has whispered in her ear.

Then they're in a forest somewhere. He has managed to pin her with her back to a tree and is kissing her. She doesn't seem to mind.

They come to a dock. This one he remembers clearly, because Rose had laughed and thanked the photographer for taking a picture where they didn't look like perfect china dolls. He is carrying her, and she is smacking him with one arm, the other around his neck. She had been trying to get him to put her down, but he had only threatened to throw her into the water.

They sit on a weathered stone bench, backs to the camera, holding hands. Her head rests on his shoulder and the setting sun gives them angelic halos.

The next page is a picture of their flat. The first home besides Hogwarts that they shared together. Rose is sitting amidst a mess of brown boxes, frowning at him when he took her picture.

Rose is propped up in a St. Mungo's hospital bed (she always argues that she had been sitting). In her arms is a chubby boy with blonde Malfoy hair. The baby is wrapped in a green blanket, because Rose always said she hated how boys wore blue and girls wore pink.

Then Hannah is born, and two-year-old Leo is trying to peek into the bundle of blankets his mother is holding.

Years pass.

Leo and Hannah grow up.

And Violet comes. She is a surprise, but a pleasant surprise nonetheless. He remembers asking in shock, "But I thought we used the potion?" She had just laughed. "But I'm a Weasley."

Their three children grow up, go to school, graduate.

Rose is getting older.

Her face lights up as she holds Leo's little blond Malfoy son, and she smiles brightly when her daughter Violet hands her Jasmine.

The last picture in the album is of her and Scorpius, on their fiftieth anniversary. They are standing beneath the Eiffel tower, a jumble of metal framing their aging, stooped figures.

Jasmine is in awe.

Heck, Scorpius is in awe.

And he finally understands why this album was so important to Rose.

So everyone would remember what grandmum was like.

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><p><strong>Lots of love to my reviewers: annabeth22, SuperTacocat, PJATOSROCKS09, India'TeamStarkid'J, FatallyUnique, listen2music4ever, AlyksDaughterofArtemis, lovetoread1998, and Sam Storsky.<strong>

**Thanks to the rest of my readers who have stuck with me this far, even though they didn't review. (You know who you are. No one can hide from the story traffic stats. ;))**

**So that's it. Please leave a review, a story alert, or favorite. If you want, you can even flame me.**


	9. Very Important Author's Note!

**YAYYYY!**

**Quoting of Rose Weasley has been nominated for the RoseScorpius Fans Forum's 2011-2012 ROSESCORPIUS AWARDS!**

***insert fangirl hysteria***

**Thanks to Aeron Thana for the nomination!**


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